Web transforms Open University students' lives

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:44

IT IS traditionally seen as a lonely business, with students isolated from each other, writing essays at the kitchen table in the dead of night with the kids in bed.

Times have changed, however, and iTunes, internet conferencing and social networking sites, better known for allowing teenagers to chat and swap photographs, are helping distance learners share ideas and experience education together, even if they live hundreds of miles apart.

The Open University (OU) is the UK's largest university, teaching almost 200,000 students each year. OU learning is vastly different to the experience of its first students 40 years ago.

Lorraine Hunter, spokeswoman for OU in Scotland, says: "New technologies are helping to create lots of lines of communication which would never have been imagined before.

"Virtually all our students will have access to internet conferencing and can converse about the topics they are covering."

Since 1969, the OU has taught more than two million people and there are more than 14,000 Scots learning with it in city and rural communities from Shetland to the Borders. Ms Hunter says. "The OU leads the way in learning technology."

The internet has revolutionised education, particularly for the OU, which has 250,000 currently interacting with its online resource. Over the last two years it has invested 2.9 million on e-learning technologies.

Last year, it became the first university to offer free downloadable course material via iTunesU, the area of Apple's iTunes store offering downloadable education content.

Last month Learning and Teaching Scotland, the governmental body responsible for the new school curriculum, announced it would also be putting free educational resources on iTunesU.

Also in 2008, the OU launched its own online video community site called "ouView" on YouTube. Since their launch, the three channels have received 62,346 views and total video views currently stand at 889,121. The OU even has its own Facebook page and a presence in virtual world Second Life called Open Life.

"New technologies play a central part in building communities of learners," says Ms Hunter. "Most OU students will have access to online learning materials, and to online discussion forums where they can link to other students on their course in their area, across Scotland, the UK, even worldwide. This can add considerably to their learning experience, sharing issues and knowledge, and offering a global perspective on their studies.

"It also makes learning truly portable because students can connect to the OU using a range of electronic media wherever they are."

The main pull of distance learning is that it enables people to study and continue to work at the same time.

This week the International Correspondence Schools (ICS) launches a pilot in Glasgow for a UK campaign to promote such learning in anticipation of rising demand driven by the recession.

ICS has a 200,000 pot to offer everyone living within Greater Glasgow a 100 discount on its courses. For two weeks these discounts are available for anyone with a G, ML or PA postcode.

Recent figures from the Work Foundation showed that, in February this year, 20,276 people in the Glasgow city area were claiming unemployment benefit, which it says equates to 5.2 per cent of the workforce.

Sally Pulvertaft, ICS managing director, says: "With college admissions rocketing and people worrying about job security, distance learning is a cost-effective, practical solution.

"In these difficult times nothing is more important than investing in our own people. We believe this is a significant step towards ensuring Glasgow and its workforce is equipped to lead Scotland's economic recovery."

ICS is one of the world's oldest and one of the UK's biggest correspondence training providers, set up in 1890 in the United States. At its Glasgow headquarters, it manages 45,000 students a year across a range of academic and vocational programmes.

For the next fortnight, ICS has rebranded the Glasgow underground system as a "skillway" and turned the Subway map into a visual map of the skills and benefits of distance learning. Two stations, Buchanan Street and St Enoch, will feature the campaign on platforms.

A recent survey by ICS showed 40 per cent of adults in the UK studied during the previous year and 25 per cent would use distance learning if they could find the right course. Only 8 per cent of those questioned said they preferred to learn face-to-face.

Keith Dickinson, former assistant principal of Edinburgh Napier University, who chairs ICS's academic board, says: "It is also about giving people who might not normally get this opportunity the chance to study successfully and hence boost their self esteem and enhance their career prospects."

In an ideal world, most people would probably like to join a university course full-time, but as many face redundancy and seek retraining for a new role, the need to keep earning is vital.

Distance learning may remain a choice made more out of necessity than desire, however, with a society ever more focused on social networking sites and on the internet it certainly isn't the lonely option anymore.